Ed McBain - The House That Jack Built

“Occasionally.”

“You knew where he was staying. In Calusa, I mean. You said you sent him a birthday card…”

“Yes.”

“Had you written to him at that address before?”

“Yes, I think so.”

“Did he write back?”

“I really don’t remember.”

“But in any case, if he did write back, he never mentioned anyone named Elise Brechtmann.”

“Not to my knowledge. Matthew… my brother was homosexual from the time he was fifteen. I really don’t think he’d be writing to me about a girl . He had no interest whatever in the opposite sex, believe me.”

“A man named Anthony Holden seems to think Elise Brechtmann was one of your brother’s friends.”

Parrish was shaking his head.

“A very good friend, in fact.”

He was still shaking his head.

“But you’ve never heard of her.”

“Never.”

Matthew sighed deeply.

Billy was packing.

Every now and then, he glanced over to where Helen lay on the floor against the wall, whimpering.

He wanted to get out of here very fast.

He wanted to get very far away from Calusa and Arthur Hurley and the woman who lay there bleeding against the wall.

Artie had taken the car, he’d have to call a taxi to take him to the airport. Get the hell out of here fast.

He threw a stack of undershorts into his valise and then looked over toward the wall again.

Her hand came up.

Grabbing for the wall.

And then trailed limply down the wall.

Blood followed her hand, streaking the wall.

When Matthew got back to the office at a little past two, Cynthia handed him a handful of messages. The only call he returned was the one from Morrie Bloom.

“Morrie,” he said, “it’s me.”

“Hello, Matthew,” Bloom said. “Two things. We questioned Hurley and his pal Walker, and we let them go. We had nothing to hold them on, and besides I really think they were telling the truth about not going inside that house.”

“Okay.”

“Second, I had a team of men going over every inch of that house since I spoke to you early this morning, and I mean going over it, Matthew. They just got back here a little while ago. They found some photographs in a shoebox in the upstairs bedroom but none of them are baby pictures, just Parrish and some of his playmates cavorting on the beach. So it looks like if somebody went in that house looking for baby pictures, then he found them, Matthew, ’cause they sure as hell ain’t there anymore.”

“Okay, Morrie, thank you.”

“You got any other ideas?”

“Not at the moment. Are you helping me with my case, Morrie?”

“I am a seeker of justice and truth,” Bloom said.

Matthew smiled.

“Me, too,” he said.

“Keep in touch, okay?” Bloom said, and hung up.

Cynthia buzzed almost immediately.

“It’s Warren,” she said. “He’s at the airport.”

“What line?”

“Five.”

Matthew punched the five-button.

“Yes, Warren?”

“Matthew, there’s a two-thirteen I can catch to New York. That gives me eight minutes. I located a woman named Lucy Strong, she’s black like me, Matthew, she loved my voice on the phone. I think she’s in her fifties, it sounded like, and she was a nurse on the maternity ward when a woman named Elise Abbott was there in the summer of sixty-nine. She remembers a man taking pictures, but she didn’t want to tell me anything else on the phone, even if I am black, because she’s afraid she might get in trouble.”

“What kind of trouble?”

“Matthew, it doesn’t matter what kind of trouble, I’ve got six minutes to buy a ticket and get on that plane. Black people are always afraid of getting in some kind of trouble, that’s the way Whitey trained us. Do I go to New York or not?”

“Go,” Matthew said.

“I’ll call you later,” Warren said, and hung up.

“Billy,” she said.

He looked toward the wall.

“Help me,” she said.

He said nothing.

He went to the closet and took from the rack the only suit he owned, and he carried that to the valise without looking at Helen all crumpled against the wall. He folded the suit neatly into the valise, and then went back to the dresser to collect the two dress shirts he’d put in the top drawer.

“Billy?” she said.

He didn’t answer her.

“Is he gone, Billy?”

He put the two dress shirts into the valise on top of his folded suit jacket. Button-down collars on those shirts, the kind Yuppies wore.

“Billy, you have to help me.”

“I don’t have to do nothin’,” he said.

“Billy, please.”

He went back to the dresser.

Checked all the drawers to make sure none of his stuff was still in them. Rummaged through Helen’s panties and bras, a few of her sweaters and blouses, couldn’t find anything belonging to him.

“Billy?”

“Shut up,” he said.

“Billy… I’m bleeding real bad.”

He closed the valise, snapped the locks shut.

“I have to get to a hospital,” she said.

The telephone rang. He picked up the receiver.

“Hello?”

“Mr. Walker?”

The good-looking broad who ran the place.

“Yeah?”

“Your taxi’s here, sir.”

“I’ll be right up, ask him to wait.”

He put the phone back on the cradle.

“Billy?”

“Shut up,” he said.

“Help me. Please.”

Like fun, he thought.

“Billy?” she said.

Help you and that fucking lunatic’ll come after me !

“Billy?” she said.

But he was already gone.

Names stenciled in black on the concrete curbing for each parking space.

FRANK SUMMERVILLE and alongside that MATTHEW HOPE.

A brown Mercedes Benz in the Summerville space.

Tan Karmann Ghia in the Hope space.

The blue Honda was parked across the street. Hurley sat behind the wheel, watching the building. Summerville and Hope. Law Offices. 333 Heron Street. At a little before two-thirty. Hurley saw him coming out of the building and walking toward the Ghia.

Good, he thought. Now we’re in the open, Mr. Hope. Now we see where you’re going and we take care of you, Mr. Hope, we dance you around the block, sweetheart, we take you out .

He nodded curtly and started the car.

First the police coming by shortly after she’d got back here this morning, driving off with the two men. Then both of them coming back in a taxi around twelve-thirty or thereabouts. Then the older one driving off in the Honda at a little past one. And now the young one going off in a taxi. Which left only the pregnant girl over there in the cabin.

Irene looked at the motel register again.

Mr. and Mrs. Arthur Hurley.

Mr. William Harold Walker.

Said he was the girl’s brother.

In this business, you didn’t ask too many questions. Not if you wanted to make a living. Rented them the cabin at the going rate for three, wouldn’t have cared if they were planning a circus in there, two of them on a pregnant woman, one on top, one underneath, in this business it was Ask me no questions, I’ll tell you no lies. Yes, sir, Mr. Hurley, I hope you and your wife and your brother-in-law enjoy the accommodations, you can get a good hearty breakfast in the diner across 41. Let them come, do what they had to do, and then let them go. No skin off Irene’s nose. This was a business.

But —

Matthew Hope had been interested in these people.

This morning, when she was still at his house, he’d received a phone call from someone, and then he’d asked about the crowd in cabin number eleven, the Hurley party, and then he’d told whoever was on the other end of the line that Hurley and Walker had been spotted watching the Parrish house and that it might be a good idea to look them up, and oh, by the way, Hurley has a record.